The imaging devices such as a digital still camera, digital video camera, etc. are designed more compact with all the functions being integrated in the body of the devices. Since shooting is made with the imaging device itself being held, a shape of the imaging device will make it difficult to hold the imaging device or a shooting position or angle will make it difficult to make the shooting from a stable angle.
On this account, it has been proposed to install the grip unit to be held by the user pivotably to the lateral side of the main body with a pivot hinge mechanism so that the angular position of the grip unit in relation to the main body can arbitrarily be changed correspondingly to a shooting position or angle.
Note that between the main body and grip unit, a harness (wiring) is routed through an opening formed in the pivot hinge mechanism. There has been proposed a pivot hinge mechanism of this type constructed as shown in FIG. 16. As shown, the pivot hinge mechanism, generally indicated with a reference numeral 200, includes a stationary plate 201 fixed to a main body, rotating plate 202 fixed to a grip unit and a spindle 203 that supports the rotating plate 202 rotatably in relation to the stationary plate 201. The stationary and rotating plates 201 and 202 have formed therein openings 205 and 206, respectively, through which there is penetrated a harness 204 routed between the main body and grip unit.
The harness 204 is formed from a long flexible printed circuit board (FPC) having a predetermined width. It has an excess portion 204a of such a sufficient length greater than a minimum necessary length for the routing that the harness 204 can follow up the pivoting of the grip unit and the harness can easily be routed between the main body and grip unit. As shown in FIG. 17, the harness 204 is folded back with the excess portion 204a being laid between the stationary and rotating plates 201 and 202, while being routed at one-end side thereof through the opening 205 in the stationary plate 201 to the main body and at the other-end side thereof through the opening 206 in the rotating plate 202 to the grip unit.
In the above conventional pivot hinge mechanism 200, since the folded-back width of the harness 204 depends upon a gap S formed between the stationary and rotating plates 201 and 202, it should be smaller when the gap S is reduced for a reduced thickness of the entire pivot hinge mechanism 200. However, the reduction of the folded-back width will result in a reduced bending resistance and reduced degree of freedom of routing of the flexible printed circuit board. Especially, in case a double-side flexible printed circuit board is used as the harness, the larger number of wires therein will lead to an increased hardness of the harness itself as compared with the one-side flexible printed circuit board. In this case, when the excess portion 204a of the harness 204 lacking the bending resistance is folded back at the narrow gap S between the stationary and rotating plates 201 and 202, the harness 200 cannot follow up the rotation of the rotating plate 202 in relation to the stationary plate 201 with the result that the harness 204 will be broken along the folding line and the flexible printed circuit board itself will be broken.
Also, in the imaging device having a pivotable grip unit, the grip unit should be held stably in an arbitrary angular position in relation to the main body. On this account, it has been proposed to provide a friction mechanism that will give a friction to between the main body and grip unit. However, such a friction mechanism will cause the imaging device to be larger in size and also will interfere with the harness routed between the main body and grip unit.